8 Tips From a Pediatrician on Managing the Costs of Children's Medical Care

Cutting Health Care Costs: Children's Care

4. Do consider breastfeeding.

Racine is sympathetic to the challenges that breastfeeding poses for mothers who work outside the home. He says there are "very, very few places in the United States that actually have adequate facilities for moms to nurse their children or to pump for breast milk when they're on the job. These are basic things in most parts of the industrialized world that we just neglect."

Racine also suggests making your own baby food. "Baby food is more expensive than the ingredients that are in it, and it's an easy enough thing to do," Racine says.

For instance, he says do-it-yourself applesauce is "simply a matter of peeling apples and cutting them up and boiling them in a little water until they're soft, cooling them down, and pureeing them. That's applesauce, nothing much to it."

5. Don't delay buying a car seat or crib for a baby.

"Everyone needs to have a car seat when they're transporting their child," Racine says. "That's a major safety issue for all children."

Cribs are also a must, he says, noting the risks of parents sharing beds with babies. "We know for sure that babies are much safer when they're sleeping on their backs in a crib than they are sleeping with parents in their own bed," Racine says.

A bassinet may be OK for a newborn, but "a lot of bassinets are not designed with the same safety features as most cribs are, so that there may be more areas where babies can get their faces next to parts of the bassinet that don't allow them to breathe well,' Racine says.

"Really, they should be in cribs as soon as you can get them there, because it's just a safer environment for them," he says.

6. Do try phone or email for questions for your pediatrician's office.

Checking in by phone or email with basic questions may head off the cost of a trip to the pediatrician's office, Racine says.

"Most pediatricians' offices offer telephone counseling for lots of routine kinds of problems that some people either end up going to an emergency room about ... or end up going to their doctor's office, when really a lot of it could be handled on the telephone," Racine tells WebMD.

"More and more pediatrician's offices are doing similar things with regard to the Internet, so you can email your doctor with a question and they can get back to you by email -- a way to answer some of these basic issues without you having to incur the costs of a visit," he says.